text: Positive feedback loops can cause ultrasensitive responses.  An example of this is seen in the transcription of certain eukaryotic genes in which non-cooperative transcription factor binding changes positive feedback loops of histone modification that results in an ultrasensitive activation of transcription.  The binding of a transcription factor recruits histone acetyltransferases and methyltransferases.  The acetylation and methylation of histones recruits more acetyltransferases and methyltransferases that results in a positive feedback loop.  Ultimately, this results in activation of transcription.
  Additionally, positive feedback can induce bistability in Cyclin B1- by the two regulators Wee1 and Cdc25C, leading to the cells decision to commit to mitosis. The system cannot be stable at intermediate levels of Cyclin B1, and the transition between the two stable states is abrupt when increasing levels of Cyclin B1 switches the system from low to high activity. Exhibiting hysteresis, for different levels of Cyclin B1, the switches from low to high and high to low states vary. However, the emergence of a bistable system is highly influenced by the sensitivity of its feedback loops. It has been shown in Xenopus' egg extracts that Cdc25C hyperphosphorylation is a highly ultrasensitive function of Cdk activity, displaying a high value of the Hill coefficient (approx. 11), and the dephosphorylation step of Ser 287 in Cdc25C (also involved in Cdc25C activation) is even more ultrasensitive, displaying a Hill coefficient of approximately 32.